John Quincy Adams' Legislative Proposals

John Quincy Adams' proposals indicate clearly that he achieved the presidency too late. His ideas were a strong statement of Federalism, but the 1820s was an age of states’ rights. His program would no doubt have pleased Alexander Hamilton; it included the following:

maintaining a strong Bank of the United States

funding a federal role in education

strengthening of the army and navy

establishing a naval academy

protecting the rights of Native Americans

funding scientific expeditions.

The Adams program encountered a dead-end in Congress where the Jacksonian forces were still smarting from the “corrupt bargain."